Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Tree

Attempting to carve out a spacein my living room for a tree. Of the evergreenvariety. I miss the $5 Chubby & Tubby trees.I saw an ad in the paper last week advertisingC & T trees at a lot somewhere out north -- Shoreline,I believe. But without the old variety storewith its merchandise stacked to the ceiling, it's just not the same thing. Upon purchaseof a tree, every customer was given a key,where one could attempt to unlock the Treasure Boxin the store. One year Nelson's key opened it!He received a $10 gift certificate, which he promptlyspent on a green fleece hat with a long tailand a pom-pom. Our cat Tip went crazy overthe pom, and we had to make sure we put the hathigh out of his reach or he'd spend hourschewing on it. Chubby & Tubby trees were the old-fashionedDoug firs, untrimmed, spare, often flattened fromlying stacked one against the other. They needed fluffing.Tree-shopping there was a source of great amusement.And you couldn't beat the price, even when theywent up to a whopping $7.

Ha! I can't believe Nelson got a key that opened the treasure box! I looked forward each year with renewed optimism for my chance, and was, year after year after year, locked out. Began to wonder if *any* keys opened the box... of course they did. Good ol chubby and tubby.

"Like other poets, I am often asked if I have a spiritual practice. Yes, writing is my spiritual practice."— Alicia Ostriker

"The trick, Gloria thought as she experienced near-whiplash at the revelation, was to keep the level of believing in magic constant."—Marylinn Kelly

"Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me."—Sigmund Freud

"...and following the wrong god home we may miss our star."—William Stafford

"I am in love with the world.""—Maurice Sendak

“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.” —Rainier Maria Rilke"Writing means revealing oneself to excess."--Franz Kafka"There isn't enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails. " --Raymond Carver"Someone I loved once gave mea box full of darkness.It took me years to understandthat this, too, was a gift. "--Mary Oliver"In the middle of the journey of our lifeI found myself in a dark wood,For I had lost the right path.And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars." --Dante Alighieri